


If I Buy the Booze (Will You Come)?

by LadyAJ_13



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Hauling in the Thames Valley Police when you need extra men, Isolation, Parties, Post-Canon, This is how Joan solves problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:54:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21704047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyAJ_13/pseuds/LadyAJ_13
Summary: “I’m having a party.” Morse cocks an eyebrow, but otherwise stays silent. “Tonight. I need guests… male guests.”“And you came here?” he asks incredulously, screwing up his face in that way he has. It makes her laugh, loosening her last vestiges of awkwardness.“I just thought – where can I find a load of men unlikely to have plans of an evening?”“And you thought of us,” he smiles back, eyes crinkled. “Charming. You know, I’m not sure policemen should be seen at that kind of party. Not real ones anyway.”
Relationships: Endeavour Morse & Joan Thursday, Joan Thursday/Other(s)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 43





	If I Buy the Booze (Will You Come)?

Her mother had warned her it would happen. That when she got married she'd be so busy keeping a home that everything else would fall by the wayside. That it was normal. She'd laughed, and assured her it was different now. Women could have it all these days, and she fully intended to.

She even managed it, for a few months. But then she got pregnant, so she stepped down at work; she didn't want to send her child to nursery as a baby, if she was having a child then she wanted to look after it. She remembered afternoons, back before Sam was born and just on the edge of memory – her and mum, playing, the house smelling like baking biscuits, the excitement of dad coming home.

She still had her friends, of course. She met up with the girls from work a couple of times – but once she was out of that world she began to lose track of who they were complaining about, and they weren't that interested in her stories of funny things Sarah had done. And then Elsie from school moved away when her husband got a new job up North, and Miriam started turning down invitations, and before she knew it, the only person she spoke to on a regular basis – that she wasn't related to – was Caroline from next door.

She _hates_ Caroline.

Caroline draws people around her like some kind of flame, with all her little starry-eyed moths. She's head of the PTA. She helps out at the church. She raises three adorable, well-behaved little boys, and her house is always spotless. People want to be near her, and something about her just makes bile rise in Joan's throat. She's not interesting, is the thing. She's perfect but God, is she ever dull.

Caroline holds cocktail parties, and Joan and Drew always have to attend; it would be rude not to, being right next door. Her parents usually take the kids too, meaning no easy excuse to pop home each hour for a check-up and a bit of quiet.

“You know it’s your turn next, Joanie!”

That's the other thing. _Joanie_ , like she's entitled to that name.

“But you do it so much better, Caroline,” she simpers through gritted teeth. But despite her protestations she hasn't got much of a choice; Caroline laughs, and flips her hair, and somehow, as usual, gets her way.

“You'll invite some people from work,” Joan tells Drew the next day. “Mark, and his wife – what is it again, Sue? And Liam, and – well I think most people are likely to be couples, but do try and get Steve to come along, he's the only one with a sense of humour and I'm going to need someone to liven the place up.”

She phones Miriam, too, who promises to come if she can get a babysitter. Joan privately marks her down as a maybe. Who else? She tries the girls she used to work with, even though they've not met up in – gosh, it’s been over a year. But she calls anyway, and a couple say they'll try and make it. Lisa turns her down – a prior engagement that likely doesn't exist – and Shelley's phone number no longer works.

She calls her mother. “Of course, dear!” she exclaims. “I'd be happy to have Sarah.”

“No, Mum, to come, I'm inviting you to come. You and dad.”

“Oh, you don't want us old fuddy duddies there. I remember the odd party we used to throw – I know there's a temptation to cut loose with the kids out of the way, we'd only cramp your style. No, we'll take Sarah off your hands for the weekend, how's that? Some quality granddaughter time.”

She hangs up and looks at her list. It’s small, but she tells herself it’s select. Intimate. People will actually be able to circulate, and mingle with each other, rather than at one of Caroline’s flashy soirées, when you can barely get to the kitchen for a drink.

\--

It seems no time at all before the day dawns, and Joan drops Sarah off with her mother first thing.

“Are you _sure_ you don’t want to come, mum? I can ask Betty across the road to watch her, she’s always after spare cash for the pictures-“

“No, no.” Her mum is besotted with Sarah, and a rush of affection steals through her when Sarah lights up in return. She can hardly wave goodbye to her mum quickly enough, toddling inside the old family home and dragging her grandmother after her.

She lingers, one hand on the garden gate, before shaking herself out of it. Right. Action plan.

She heads to the supermarket first. Drew picked up beer, wine and spirits the other evening (and he seems to have catered for about ten times as many people as they know – they’re well stocked for the next decade) but she needs to get nibbles and canapés, juice, napkins...

\--

“Yes, of course… no, I completely understand… absolutely, thank you for letting me know.”

She hangs up the phone and slumps into a kitchen chair. There are pieces of chopped cheddar scattered around her, and pineapple juice is leaking in pools, turning everything sticky. She stabs a cocktail stick into the grain of the table surface.

“It’s okay,” she mutters to herself, “it’s just Miriam. You knew she’d pull out anyway.” She grabs a stick and shoves together cheese and pineapple with more force than necessary, but it gets the job done. Before too long, her anger has drained and she has a plate of stabbed canapés. Perfect.

“Coo-ee!”

Shit.

“Caroline,” she plasters a smile on her face and wipes her hands as best she can on her apron. They’re still tacky with pineapple, and when Caroline grabs them to greet her with a kiss on each cheek she winces. Joan smirks over her shoulder. “Party prep, you know how it is.”

Caroline nods vaguely.

“Was there something you needed?” she prompts. She’s still got a lot to do today, including running a hoover and duster round. She can see Caroline taking in the newspaper sections slung across chairs, the detritus of Sarah and Drew’s breakfasts still in the sink.

“I’ve got a few friends popping down,” Caroline visibly gathers herself. “And they’re all so much looking forward to your party! I told them Joan, she’ll have everyone who’s anyone in Oxford here, with all her connections.”

What connections, she thinks blankly.

“A few friends?”

“Not too many,” she lays a hand on Joan’s arm, and Joan twitches. “Just school friends and the like, you know. From around the area. Ten or fifteen-“

“Ten or…?”

“No trouble at all, they won’t eat hardly anything, like little mice the lot of them.” Caroline glances down again at the plate of cheese and pineapple. “Maybe just a _few_ more snacks though, you don’t want anyone unable to handle their drink.” She flings open the cupboard where they store the cereal. “I hope you _are_ well-stocked with drinks?”

“Yes,” she replies stiffly.

“Well, if you run out I’m happy to pop over and grab a few bottles.”

“That’s kind of you, Caroline.”

“And I’m very much looking forward to meeting all of your guests, as are my friends. Lucy is such a sweet girl, and Mary's a riot, honestly Joanie, you have to get her to tell you this one story – when we were in Brighton-” she interrupts herself with a giggle, and Joan suppresses the urge to roll her eyes. “I'll let her tell it! I hope there will be lots of eligible men around-“

Eligible men? She thinks, frantically, of Steve, the only unattached man she’s invited. She’s not sure, but she thinks he’s… not one for the ladies.

“Men?”

“Of course!” Caroline titters, one manicured hand lightly covering her lips. “Oh Joanie, no. You haven’t just invited couples have you? What a bore!”

“No,” she responds, automatically, and before she’s thought it through. She hasn’t after all; she also invited Miriam, who now can’t make it, and Steve, who is quite probably gay. It’s unlikely to stack up as evidence come seven PM, when Caroline returns with her little moths twittering around her. “Of course not,” she follows up, and resists the urge to smack her head into the table. Instead, she ushers Caroline out of the door.

And grabs her coat.

\--

She’s not walked through this door in years. The last time was just before Dad retired, when she was still with the welfare. The layout’s the same, though, and she nods at the cop on the front desk, who smiles and nods confusedly in return; knowing her face, perhaps, but not placing it.

In front of the glass pane showing that familiar office is the first time she hesitates since herding Caroline down the front steps. Is she actually doing this?

“Miss…”

It’s him, of course. She could have bumped into any of them to explain her predicament – privately, she was hoping for Jim – but of course it’s Morse. He looks younger, strangely, the god-awful moustache gone and rewinding the years until – happy as she is without him – it causes a tight twinge in her chest.

“Morse. Call me Joan. I’m not a Miss any more.”

“Joan,” he corrects, as if it’s easy, rather than a disagreement that’s spanned their whole acquaintance. “Everything okay with your parents?”

“Oh, yes.” She suddenly feels ridiculous, stood here, gone running to the police when she has no reason to. She finds herself fiddling with the clasp of her handbag, and stills her hand with some effort.

“Cup of tea?”

He leads her to the new canteen, a place she still associates, embarrassingly, with those two kids and their assumption that she and Morse were a couple. It’s in the bowels of the building, dark, and although the odd person is hanging around, it’s pretty quiet at this hour. No doubt it will start to fill up soon, with the hungriest of policemen in for an early lunch. She wonders if he’s remembering the same night. The tea, when it comes, is lukewarm and still terrible, and there’s something about the consistency of it that puts her at ease.

“So, what’s the problem?”

Where to start? “I’m having a party,” she says simply. Morse cocks an eyebrow, but otherwise stays silent. “Tonight. I need guests… male guests.”

“And you came here?” he asks incredulously, screwing up his face in that way he has. It makes her laugh, loosening her last vestiges of awkwardness.

“I just thought – where can I find a load of men unlikely to have plans of an evening?”

“And you thought of us,” he smiles back, eyes crinkled. “Charming. You know, I’m not sure policemen should be seen at that kind of party. Not real ones anyway.”

She thumps him on the arm. “It’s not that kind of party!” She realises, suddenly, that she’s missed this. Missed him. She’s always liked Morse, and now that she’s married, there’s no undercurrent and she realises just how much. How it wasn’t all young infatuation with the pretty policeman who showed up on her doorstep, but that her and Morse click. They have a similar sense of humour, when she can tease it out of his staid exterior.

“Uh huh.” He drinks his tea, and she knows the way he won’t look anywhere at her is another jibe, as if his virtue is under attack.

“So, will you come?”

“What exactly are you asking me to walk into?”

“Not just you. Whoever’s around. Jim…” Her knowledge of current Oxford coppers who aren’t complete arseholes runs out about there, but then she thinks of setting Ronnie Box loose on Caroline’s friends and can’t quite stifle the smirk. “Box, if you must.”

“Okay, the dream trio.” He rolls his eyes. “And the reason you’re rounding up men?”

“My neighbour, Caroline. At the last minute she invited a load of her friends, and said I better have singles ready to mingle, or whatever they call it these days. And my god, but I hate that woman. I can’t let her-”

He laughs, tipping back on his chair slightly. “So… you decided to inflict me as punishment. Very wise.”

“No, not-“ she sighs, frustrated, and fixes him with a mild glare. “You know what I mean. Just be there, girls like policemen, they’ll go all fluttery.” Especially for Morse, she thinks, if he can keep his grumpiness in check – much as she loves Jim too. And Box is… attractive, in a weaselly way, if he keeps his mouth shut.

“What’s in it for me?”

She casts her eyes about. “Free booze? Cheese and pineapple on sticks?”

He nods, decisively. “Had me at the free booze, Joan.”

\--

She’s nervous that evening, and flies around playing host. Drew had come home with Mark and Liam in tow, at least, and their wives had shown up in short order to send her off upstairs to change while they finished up the food prep. Now the two couples and Drew are ensconced in the living room, and she’s having a minor panic attack in the kitchen because Morse said he’d be here at 7, and it’s already ten past.

The doorbell goes.

“Oh, er, hello-“

Drew has answered it, and Joan pops her head out of the kitchen. He looks decidedly confused at the men crowded onto his front steps, and Joan realises she was so distracted by pouring drinks when they all turned up that she forgot to relay any of this to him.

“Morse, Jim – um, Ronnie,” she says, appearing at Drew’s shoulder and smiling her hostess smile. “Thank you for coming. Come in, Drew, take their coats.” There are two younger men with them, a little wide-eyed and looking round curiously. Joan hopes it’s not at her decorating skills.

“This is DC Cooper and DC Lovelace,” Morse explains.

“Sam and Carl,” Jim translates.

“Lovely,” she says vaguely, shaking both their hands. “I’m Joan, let me get you all a drink-“

“Sam’s looking forward to meeting his future wife,” Jim adds, and Joan realises Morse has at least told him the whole story – possibly all of them know they’re here as temporary escorts. She flushes.

“Um, people are still arriving,” she says quickly, to excuse the lack of available women that she advertised. It comes true seconds later as Caroline arrives with her posse, and suddenly the front hallway is so crowded it pushes the police contingent through into the living room. Joan escapes back to the kitchen, grabbing wine bottles to fill everyone up.

–

It's... not the disaster it could have been, she decides later. The policemen are holding their own amongst an as-expected fluttery cohort of women. Unflappable, she supposes; after a dead body or two playing the eye candy at a drinks party is hardly likely to ruffle feathers. Sam – or maybe Carl, she was never told which was which – looks positively smitten with a young blonde who may be called Sophie. Box has been cornered by two sisters, but couldn't look happier about it if he tried, and Jim has been circling, stopping to chat with almost everyone, and generally doing a better impression of hosting than she's managed.

Carl – or possibly Sam – has been deep in conversation with Steve for the last half hour.

Even Morse, she thinks as she checks the refrigerator for a new bottle of white. Even Morse has been making an effort. She chooses a Chardonnay, but feels a presence behind her and whirls, hand flying up to -

to catch Morse on the nose. She diverts her hand to her mouth, giggling at his expression. She may be drunker than she thought. “I'm so sorry,” she manages to get out.

He prods where she hit gently. “I think I'll live. Any more ale?”

“Try the bottom cupboard.”

She watches him rifle through the selection, mumbling to himself. When he straightens again, bottle in hand, she smiles at him. “Thank you Morse.” He waves the bottle at her; his payment. “No, I mean it. I didn't think – I – if I made this difficult, if you're still-”

“Pining over you?”

She blushes, uneasy with the bluntness. It sounds conceited of her; they were years ago, she's obviously moved on, why wouldn't Morse have? But she ran to him for help and he answered. And she remembers the look in his eyes as she pressed her fingers to his lips, his ear against the phone, and she walked away. She remembers how he came to her in hospital when the landlord called, how he never said anything to Dad – not to this day – and all the times he fought her and stood beside her, and saved her, and loved her.

How she loved him too, but not enough. Not at the right moment.

“I'm fine,” he promises.

“Then I'm sorry about them.” She hooks a thumb over her shoulder, back to where music and shrieks of laughter still spill from the living room. She perches on the kitchen windowsill. “I know parties aren't your thing.” She's remembering again, another party. A house warming, when he'd arrived with a bottle and they'd looked out across Oxford's jagged skyline.

“Elodie is okay.” He digs a thumbnail under the label of his beer, scratching it off, and sits next to her. She's still holding the wine, and he clinks the two bottles together. “She likes opera.”

She has no idea which one is Elodie, but she's suddenly fiercely glad for her presence. And Morse's. He grabs a corkscrew and opens the wine for her, but she's left her glass in the living room, and she's not ready to head back into the madness just yet. She takes a drink straight from the bottle. There's no one here to see but Morse, and he just smirks at her and steals his own swig. “Thought you were on the beer,” she grins.

“I like to live on the edge.”

“I could ask Caroline for Elodie's phone number.”

He stares at her and gulps the wine again, before handing it back and brushing his hand across his mouth. Once, this would have excited her. Kissing by proxy. Now she just wipes the top with her palm and drinks again.

“I can ask for it myself if I want it.”

She looks at her knees, condensation from the bottle leaving a wet patch on her dress. “I know,” she says. He asked her to marry him from nowhere, and she almost said yes. He'll have no trouble charming a phone number from a pretty girl.

“Drew seems like a good man.”

She nods. “Maybe we could double date.”

He steals the wine back, and she wonders if she's said the wrong thing, if he's not quite as fine as he says. But when she looks at him, he's smiling at her. “You and Jim are really quite similar, you know that?”

It's history in a sentence, the simple ways they cross over and interlock, their shared path. She's known this man since she was just out of school. She's known Jim even longer. Drew is newer, but he's carved himself deep into her bones, and she couldn't imagine life without him. She thinks of this last year; the joy of Sarah, the love from Drew, but the isolation and endlessness of everything else. “We should,” she insists. She feels like she's got him back, a friend, and she doesn't want to let him go. “Jim too. Triple date. We'll start a new thing.”

“What about Box?”

“You invite Box on a date out with me and I'm standing everyone up.”

“We could all stand him up.”

“No,” she gasps. “Get there first and get the drinks in, then-”

“Stick him with the tab? Miss Thursday, I didn't realise you had it in you-”

She knocks her shoulder into his, as much reproof for the name as anything else, and he laughs. She's giggling herself, the wine bottle passing between them and already more than half empty. It's not as funny as they're acting like it is, but they're drunk. And Morse is a warm presence at her side, sat in her kitchen, and her husband is in the other room and she'll get to curl up with him tonight when everyone has gone home, and for this moment – right now. Everything feels as it should be. Golden. One of those memories you come back to again and again, wearing it smooth and shining in the reliving.

“We should get back to the party,” he says, standing and pulling her up. She stumbles, wine-clumsy, and he catches her.

“Too many drinks,” she mumbles, but she gathers him up in quick hug rather than stepping away. “Thanks,” she says quietly into his chest. “Again.”

“Any time.”

He hands her the wine bottle, then rescues his beer from where it's rolled under the radiator. He flicks the top off with the opener, and clinks it once more against the wine, eyes sparkling. “I mean it. You buy the booze. I'll come.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was going to be a Jorse story, but then Joan insisted she was happy with her OMC husband. So we veered into friendship instead. I still like it.


End file.
